Discussing religions and worldviews can make for riveting philosophical and intellectual dialogue, but when they take an aggressive turn, is it still productive? Or is it now counter-intuitive?
As our American presidential candidates fight for their ability to be the next leader of our country, it’s inevitable to see religion be involved in discussions, from marriage equality to the presence of planned parenthood in government spending to whether or not “Islam hates us”. Candidates’ views on these deeply personal topics directly correlate to the votes they will be receiving in the primaries and later on, the actual election.
From the presidential debates it is quite obvious that religion plays a vital role in the average American’s life and in turn the political sphere. This becomes more apparent as we see religion swaying political opinions concerning civil liberties and more topics discussed at debates.
Since it is such a controversial topic, people feel very strongly about it from either side—and because of this, people want to prove that they are right and someone with a differing opinion is wrong, and eventually, discussions become very polarized.
When this dialogue gets out of hand, it turns from being intellectually stimulating to creating rifts between whole groups of people. They reach the point of perpetuating stereotypes which, in the political world, demagogues eventually capitalize upon fears concerning these stereotypes to gain votes.
We know that religious discussions are prevalent among scientists, theologians, philosophers, and even everyday people. But what even happens during these “debates”?
In religious debates, random, cherry picked, concepts are analyzed over and over again and scrutinized from detail to detail leading to explosive dialogue and a sense of hostility by the time it is all over– and for what? Not for learning more about the subject. Not for trying to understand our fellow human beings’ way of life. It’s to prove someone wrong and to prove someone else right.
When I was a freshman in high school, out of curiosity, I watched some of these debates.
A common opposition set up in these debates includes a nonreligious person vs. someone of a certain faith. These could be the most interesting because they have completely opposing viewpoints, unlike one religion vs. another religion, in which they are really quite similar when you get to the root of it all.
However, from what I have seen, these debates are nothing but belittling. They put these people of different viewpoints against each other, and make baseless assumptions about the other person based on their beliefs. Those who believe in a religion are considered unintelligent and those who don’t are considered to have no morals.
There are some frustrating misconceptions that become apparent when watching these debates. The following two are ones I personally feel most passionate about:
Scriptures are not meant to be textbooks; they are not meant to explain how and why the world was formed, that is where scientists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking, and Nidhal Guessoum come into play. Religious texts are moral guidebooks which tell us how to live amongst each other. All religions teach that serving our fellow human beings is a service to God, rather than teaching us the ins and outs of how the universe came to be.
We also need to understand that this “dichotomy” between science and religion is not a dichotomy at all; they can coexist, and they do, with ease. I am sure scientists like Abdus Salam, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein would agree as well. One can not understand religion without science and one can not truly understand science without a perspective of religion as they go hand in hand. Both give humans unique perspectives on how to view the world, regardless of whether you believe in certain ideas or not.
I watched way more of these debates than I’d like to admit, and I can honestly say that I did not learn much from them. What I noticed was how a personal viewpoint could make two complete strangers argue as if they were each other’s worst enemies. It surpassed the point of analyzing ideas and bled into the depths of picking and choosing “false” ideas in order to undermine an opponent. People were willing to speak, but not listen. I noticed that those participating in these debates gained no knowledge, not because it wasn’t readily available, but because they didn’t want to learn. In this environment, telling someone that the very thing they hold closest to their hearts is wrong solicits applause.
For many who attend these debates or even participate in them, since the environment is so hostile, people instantly cling to what they want to believe and completely ignore the views of the other person. The only positive aspect of these “discussions” would be to learn about how others think, but unfortunately, this doesn’t happen.
Because of all of this mental strain from arguing, people end up avoiding speaking about these topics altogether and in turn avoid asking questions or attempting to learn about this topic in detail.
To avoid making politics and interfaith discussions as isolating as some feel they are, it’s important to keep religious discussions civil and, when concerned with politics, focus on the government and what it can do for the betterment of all its people, not just focus on certain religious or ethnic groups and “debating” whether or not some arbitrary stereotype about them is true or not. (Spoiler alert: it almost always isn’t.)
